In the evolution of protective garments, there has been an ever pressing desire to develop stronger, lighter, thinner, cooler, more breathable and thereby more wearable garments. Such garments include ballistic resistant garments which are made to resist potentially lethal forces such as those from gun shots. Typically, these ballistic resistant garments are designed to protect the wearer from ballistic forces by preventing penetration through a protective pad of the garment from a projectile bullet.
Puncture or stab resistant protective garments have also been developed which have layers of woven sheets of a puncture resistant pad which is constructed to protect puncture penetration from a sharp object through the pad. Examples of such puncture or stab resistant garments may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,960,470 and 6,154,880 of T. E. Bachner, Jr. and assigned to Second Chance Body Armor, Inc. Multipurpose body armor garments have also been developed by Second Chance Body Armor, Inc. in which a protective pad has both a ballistic resistant panel and a puncture resistant panel for protection against ballistic threats and stab/slash threats from sharp objects or weapons. Examples of such combined puncture resistant and ballistic resistant protective garments can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,131,193 and 6,219,842 of T. E. Bachner, Jr. and assigned to Second Chance Body Armor, Inc.
Recently, voluntary governmental stab resistant test criteria standards have been established to certify certain stab resistant garments. The tests determine the ability of the stab resistant body armor article to provide protection against injury from penetration from knives, edged weapons, and sharp pointed objects while ensuring that the movement of the wearer is not unduly restricted. In particular, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) 0115.00 Standard Certification tests are tests for determining the stab resistance of certain personal body armor products. The NIJ Standard—0115.00 tests are grouped into different Protection Levels (Spike Level 1, Spike Level 2, Spike Level 3). With each Protection Level, the test protocol requires the knife blade or spike to impact the armor test sample at two distinct energy levels; called “E1” and “E2”. For the “E1” energy level, a maximum blade or spike penetration of 7 mm (0.28 in) is allowable. The test protocol then requires an overtest condition where the knife blade or spike kinetic energy is increased by 50%. At this higher energy condition, called “E2,” a maximum blade or spike penetration of 20 mm (0.79 in) is allowable.
Table 1 describes the three protection levels for stab resistant body armor.
TABLE 1Stab resistant protection level strike energiesProtection“E1” Strike Energy“E2” Overtest Strike EnergyLevelJft · lbfJft · lbfSpike Level 124 ± 0.5017.7 ± 0.3636 ± 0.6026.6 ± 0.44Spike Level 233 ± 0.6024.3 ± 0.4450 ± 0.7036.9 ± 0.51Spike Level 343 ± 0.6031.7 ± 0.4465 ± 0.8047.9 ± 0.59
Further details on NIJ Standard 0115.00 may be found at National Institute of Justice Law Enforcement and Corrections Standards and Testing Program, “Stab Resistance of Personal Body Armor NIJ Standard—0115.00”, NCJ 183652, September 2000.
Various voluntary governmental ballistic standards have also been established to certify certain ballistic resistant garments. The tests determine the ability of the garment to resist penetration and also measure backface signature resulting from various ballistic rounds shot from various types of weapons. In particular, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Standard 0101.04 certification tests are ballistics tests for certifying certain body armor products. The NIJ Standard 0101.04 tests are grouped into different Threat Levels, with each Threat Level corresponding to ballistic projectile penetration stopping capabilities of various ballistic rounds fired from designated weapons. The different Threat Levels have defined criteria for defeating certain ballistic rounds and number of rounds fired as well as defined backface signature requirements. For generally concealable type ballistic resistant body armor NIJ Standard certification tests are often performed for NIJ Threat Levels IIA, II and IIIA. NIJ Threat Level IIIA is a higher standard level than NIJ Threat Level II and which in turn is a higher standard level than NIJ Threat Level IIA.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide thin and lightweight multipurpose body armor which provides both stab and ballistic resistant capabilities which meet stab and ballistic certification tests.